


Nothing safe is worth the drive

by sheriffgreene



Category: Poldark (TV 2015), Poldark - All Media Types
Genre: F/M, Modern AU, OK., Post failed Drake engagement, Rosina made her own cute clothes in the books so naturally she's an aspiring designer now, Sam rides motorcycles, The proud author of the first (1st) Samsina fic, We're gonna let Morwenna be ok and not traumatized ok?, We're gonna pretend that in this AU Drake and Morwenna break up for some other reason, dont @ me
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-19
Updated: 2018-11-19
Packaged: 2019-08-26 06:18:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,353
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16676167
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sheriffgreene/pseuds/sheriffgreene
Summary: Rosina is fine. Really she is. People break up all the time. It's FINE.Sam knows this. And yet he keeps finding himself at her flat. Just to make sure.





	Nothing safe is worth the drive

**Author's Note:**

> Ok folks. Here it is. My first Poldark fic for a ship NO ONE is writing fic about. I'm an attention whore so please leave comments so I can know if anyone even wants to see this lol (Also if you'd LIKE to know, I listened to Tay Tay's Treacherous on loop a lot during the ridiculous amount of time -think months- it took me to write this.)

The first time he goes to see her it’s as a favor to Demelza. Who feels awful (rightly so, in his opinion) about causing the whole situation but can’t really bring herself to face Rosina herself. 

“Won’t you stop by?” she begs him one day after he’s gone over for dinner, “it’s on your way back. She’s not answering my calls or texts.”

“I reckon she just needs time,” he says, but his sister insists and he finds himself pulling up in front of her building, deciding whether or not he should buzz her flat. In the end, he doesn’t need to. He happens to glance up where he knows her balcony is and there she is. The setting sun casts her in a shadow but he recognizes the silhouette of her golden curls and he reasons that at least he can tell Demelza she’s in her flat. Alive. Safe. 

Probably.

Just to make sure, he rides by the next morning to catch a glimpse of her picking up her mail and when she catches his eye he feels like a proper creep and speeds off before she gets the wrong idea. She’s probably had enough with one Carne brother tormenting her. 

 

* * *

 

 

The second time it’s entirely Drake’s fault. He wakes up to a text message sent in the middle of the night where Drake is panicking about having to see Rosina the following morning and he sounds sufficiently guilty about how things ended with her that he convinces Sam to go in his stead. 

He shows up at Rosina’s door (actually buzzes her flat this time) not because Drake asked him to, but because he wanted to talk to her. Sort this out once and for all if Drake and Demelza were too scared to face her themselves after they made a mess of her life.

Rosina doesn’t seem surprised to see him at her door instead of Drake, in fact she’s almost amused by it despite herself, shaking her head a little as she locks her front door and they begin to walk down the street. They’ve nearly reached the town centre when he finds the words to start the conversation he came to have. He’s never exactly been one to talk in circles; prefers to rip those band-aids right off. He learned it from Demelza, ironically.

“Rosina, I don’t have the words to apologize for what my brother did to you. He made a promise to you, gave you his word and he shouldn’t have gone back on it on a whim.”

She lets him ramble on and regards him carefully, her wide eyes calm until he finishes and she’s shaking her head.

“But it wasn’t a whim though, was it?”

Sam blinks.

“He loves her,” she says simply, shrugging. “And if they can be together now it would only be a waste of time to be with anyone else.”

“I don’t think he can be truly happy knowing how much he hurt you.”

At this, she almost laughs. Almost. Instead there’s a bemused but incredulous sound that escapes her. 

“Men are amazing. _I’m_ the one who gets jilted and he’s the one throwing himself a pity party,” she stops walking suddenly and looks Sam right in the eyes, this time serious. “If I can pick up the pieces of my life and move on, then so can he.” 

She keeps on walking then, leaving Sam to stare after her feeling both intrigued and impressed. His once future sister-in-law had always been quiet and sweet around him, but then they’d barely interacted. He wonders briefly if she’s simply putting on a brave face for him; for the whole town really, to try to move past this as quickly as possible. 

“Come on, then!” he hears her call out. She’s standing at the door of a brightly painted building.

“Where are we?”

“Bakery,” she explains, “was _supposed_ to be tasting cakes for my wedding today, but that went a bit wrong.”

Sam blushes and she laughs a soft, tinkling laugh.

“I figured we could eat some free cake before we ask for the deposit back. Care to join me? Or are you going to let me down too?”

He watches her carefully for a few seconds. But he sees genuine humor in her eyes and he slowly cracks a smile. Perhaps he underestimated her; perhaps they all did. 

He reaches for the door and holds it open for her. 

“I could go for some cake.” 

 

 

* * *

 

 

Emma breaks up with him on a Sunday afternoon. 12:33 to be exact. He knows this because after Sunday service it takes him exactly thirty minutes to get to her flat and it takes her approximately three to break his heart. She’d been swift and efficient. Like she’d planned and rehearsed for weeks or months and he had been non the wiser; blissfully ignorant and in love with someone who thought him “a good man, but not right for me”. 

It’s nearly five in the evening when his mobile pings and he comes to, realizing he’s been wandering around town for hours on foot even though he drove to Emma’s house. He fishes his mobile out of his jacket pocket, hoping against reason that it’s Emma who’s changed her mind but in the end it’s only Ross, reminding him about a work meeting the next morning. 

He sighs and sits down on the front steps of a building, pondering if he should just tell his brother-in-law and boss that he’s taking a personal day. Some days ( _especially_ today) he wants to tell Ross he’s not coming back at all. 

It’s not that he dislikes working with Ross. In fact he’s good at his job and he’s grateful that Ross gave him an opportunity when he and Drake first moved from Ilogen but recently he felt _stuck._ When he first took the job with Ross, it had been temporary. Something to help him earn a living until he figured out the next step. Now he was sitting in the middle of a random street, alone and heartbroken and with no clue where to go from here.

He’s running his hands through his hair for the hundredth time when a shadow and a soft voice appears in front of him. 

“You’ll yank all your hair out if you keep at that,” he squints up to see Rosina against the setting sun, a brown bag of groceries balanced on one hip. 

“What are you doing here?” 

“I might ask you the same thing. This is _my_ flat.”

He looks up at the building realizing he was, in fact, sitting at her front steps and he finds himself going red. 

“So it is,” he offers lamely, not having the energy for anything else.

“Alright, come up. You’ll scare the neighbours if you keep moping about on the pavement.” 

He hauls himself up the two flights of stairs and only has the decency to hold her bag while she fiddles with the keys, feeling like a prick for not offering to help her earlier. 

She’s making tea and he’s sitting at her small table while she puts her groceries away, moving efficiently in her small kitchen. 

“So what’s got you sulking, then?”

He takes a breath to steady himself, not sure that he’s ready to say it out loud. Saying it will make it real. He does it anyway. 

“Emma’s chucked me.” 

She doesn’t say a word until she puts a cup of tea in front of him and sits down in the other chair. 

“Did she say why?”

He shrugs helplessly. “Just that we weren’t right for each other.”

She doesn’t say anything and he adds, “I wanted to be with her forever.”

This gets a reaction out of her.

“Well, alright then,” she says with suspicious disbelief. “Didn’t you two just start dating?”

“Sometimes you just know. You and Drake were only together for what? 6 Months? Before you got engaged.”

“Are you really going to use me and Drake as a model for your romantic hopes and dreams?” She deadpans.

He winces, “Sorry.”

“It’s fine,” she waves him off. “Look, I’ll be honest, everyone walks around here expecting me to fall apart. And at first I wanted to. But after a while I started realizing that Drake ending things was the best thing that could’ve happened. Why be with someone if you’re just their second choice?”

Sam ponders this a while and then slowly nods. “I suppose Emma was always just here temporarily. She was always talking about her next adventure and it never seemed to include me.”

Rosina smiles warmly, stretching her hand to grasp his across the table. 

“You’ll find someone great. You’re a good man, Sam Carne.”

“If someone tells me that again today I’m going to go mad.”

“Fine then, let me clear the tea and we can watch a film. No one should be alone after getting dumped. Believe me.”

He feels instantly guilty for the time Demelza asked him to go see her and in his cowardice, he only loitered near her flat. 

When she emerges from the kitchen, he’s poking a fancy sewing machine that’s sitting at a worn desk in the living room, scarps of fabric strewn about in an organized chaos. 

“This yours?”

She nods. “Cost me almost everything I’ve ever earned working for your sister. Nearly cried when I saw my bank account dip.”

Sam eyes the machine with a raised brow, not knowing much about them. “She should pay you more.”

“Nah, it was worth it. Got used to the good ones at uni and I don’t want to forget everything I learned while I go back.”

Sam knew tidbits of Rosina’s university career. She was a talented student that had earned a place at a posh fashion design school in London, but when she wasn’t able to afford it anymore she took a break and moved back to Cornwall, nannying for Demelza to earn some money.

“When are you going back?”

She shrugs and throws herself on the sofa. “Not sure just yet. I’d hoped after the wedding, but Drake was never too keen on moving to London.”

He joins her on the sofa and looks at her curiously. The casual way she talks about someone who one day broke her heart. Wondering if there’d be a day when he could talk about Emma with the same nonchalance. 

“And now?”

“Now I just want to watch Harry Potter without you interrogating me on my future. You sound like my dad,” she says, gently tossing a throw pillow at him. 

He watches the opening scene of the movie: a shot of London, coincidentally, and he quietly muses, “I wouldn’t mind going to London.” 

 

* * *

 

 

He’s knocking at her door angrily, fuming really, late one evening and she opens the door with one hand, putting in an earring with the other. 

“I see you’ve heard then,” she says with nothing else to go on but his face.

“Your brother came ‘round this morning to _threaten_ me.”

“Sorry about that,” she calls out walking back into her bedroom, “I told him you were just here talking and fell asleep watching a film but he wouldn’t hear it. Doesn’t want me around Drake, you or _any_ of the Carnes.”

“It’s...it’s _bullshit,_ ” he finds himself saying. He’s not usually one to curse but he doesn’t enjoy being threatened. He’d come a long way to make sure _no one_ ever laid hands on him or Drake again. 

It’d been just a few days since Emma had broken up with him, since he fell asleep (quite uncomfortably) on Rosina’s sofa to the Harry Potter theme and woke up at dawn with a crick in his neck. He’d scrambled out of her building as the sun was barely rising and he didn’t think anyone was even _awake_ to see him leave. But he forgot how small a town this was and he woke up that morning to the eldest Hoblyn son making thinly veiled threats about how tragic it would be if something were to “happen to him” if he didn’t stay away from Rosina. 

He’d been so furious about the whole thing he didn’t even attempt to clear up the misunderstanding. Let them think what they wanted, but they would _not_ intimidate him.

“Hey,” she says walking out of her bedroom with both earrings on and coming to stand in front of him. “Don’t mind him. Or any of my brothers. They’re arseholes and if they even come near you, they’ll have me to answer to. I’ve already given them all a talking to.” She tilts her head a little and gives him a smile. “Now, go on and help me put this on.” 

She thrusts a dainty gold bracelet at him and that’s when he really takes her in for the first time since he’d walked through the door. She’s in a sundress and heels. Her curls, usually half up and wild, are now perfect, shiny, golden tendrils around her face that seems to even have a little makeup on it. 

“You going somewhere?” he asks casually while he’s fidgeting with the tiny clasp on her bracelet.

“I am,” she replies, snatching her wrist back and assessing his work. She looks flushed. And she shakes her head and adds with a sheepish smile, “don’t laugh at me, yeah?”

Sam nods. 

“I’m going on a date.”

He blinks at her a few times, confused. “Why?”

“What do you mean _why_?”

“I mean _why_? Is it not too soon? After Drake, I mean.” His mind wanders to Emma. He hasn’t heard from her since the break up and, granted, it had only been five days but suddenly a new wave of dread rushes over him thinking that Emma could be out there going on dates too. Forgetting he even exists. 

“It’s been _months_.”

“Seems soon to me.” He says, shrugging. When he looks towards Rosina, she’s eyeing him with narrowed eyes. 

“Well then I suppose it’s a good thing I didn’t ask you for permission.”

“Oh, don’t get angry. I didn’t mean it like that!” 

She leans back against her kitchen table and deflates.

“I’m not angry. Not at you. Just...my brother going around to yours. Everyone acting like they need to police my life just because of _one_ failed relationship. God, it wasn’t the end of the world, you know? How many times do I have to tell everyone I’m _fine_ before they believe me?” She throws her hands up in frustration. 

He takes a few steps towards her and then stops. Should he reach out and touch her? Hug her? Was that appropriate? Were they even friends? Or just weird almost-family that keeps finding reasons to interact with each other? 

In the end, he reaches out and awkwardly pats her on the shoulder, mumbling an ‘I’m sorry’ that has her looking up at him with a mixture of confusion and endearment. 

“I suppose I better go so you can get to your date.” He says, shoving his hands in his jacket’s pockets, backing away towards the door.

“With your blessing?” She teases as he stands in the open doorway smiling. 

“Like you need it.”

 

He’s laying in bed that night, with his messages open on his phone and he’s going through every way to talk himself in and out of texting her. He just wanted to see how her first post-Drake date had gone. Was 11pm too early to tell? What if she was still out with this nameless mystery date?

If his heart nearly gives out when he suddenly sees the three dots appear on his screen it’s only because she caught him by surprise. 

 

**RH:** I need to move out of this town!

**SC:** That bad?

**RH:** Ran into Dwight and Caroline as soon as we got to the restaurant. I’m sure Demelza (and every other Carne-Poldark) knew about my shitty date before I even got home.

**SC:** Was it shitty?

**RH:** He works for George Warleggan, you tell me.

**SC:** Hahaha You really _do_ need to move out of this town.

**RH:** Ugh. Hold me to this: No more dating until London. 

**SC:** Until London ;)

 

* * *

 

 

He swears he’s not stalking her. He had been walking around in town, trying to get a move on because it looked like rain, when he spots her looking wearily up and down the street, as she stands at the doorway of a cafe. He’s crossing the street towards her before he can think better of it. 

“You look lost,” he calls out.

“Just trying to see if I should make a run for it or wait it out,” she says, talking about the rain. 

“Come on, I’ll give you a lift.”

They walk around the corner before she stops short at what she sees.

“I’m not getting on that thing,” she declares. 

“It’s not that bad,” he assures her, mounting his bike. “Look, I’ve even got a helmet for you and everything.”

“What good’s a helmet going to be if I go flying off the back?”

“Now you sound like Demelza,” he teases. His sister hadn’t been a fan of his newfound interest in motorcycles and when Ross gifted him one for his birthday, she very nearly killed the both of them. But he loved it, loved the little bit of freedom driving fast made him feel, like he could outrun anything. It also didn’t hurt that Emma had loved riding with him; tucked in close to his back.

He thinks how he hasn’t had anyone else on his bike since her, when Rosina tentatively climbs on behind him and lightly rests her hands on his sides. He can’t help but laugh when the bike roars to life and she grabs on to him for dear life in an instant, all timidness gone. 

For her sake, he actually made a point to go painfully slow and they inevitably got caught in the rain when it started coming down in sheets halfway to her flat.

“Come in and wait it out. I’ll put the kettle on,” she calls out over the loud rain. He can hardly make out her face in the down pour, much less see the road ahead, and so he takes her offer and runs up the stairs to her cozy flat. 

He’s stoking the old wood burning stove when she comes out of her room, wearing dry clothes and holding a pile in her hands. 

“They’re Drake’s,” she says a little awkwardly. “Not sure if they’ll fit but...they’re dry.”

He nods and takes his brother’s clothes, walking into her bathroom to change without another word. It went without saying that it had been a long, long time since Drake had been a point of tension for Rosina. She’d more than made her peace with the past relationship and had even taken a few steps towards friendship with Drake. But there was something strange, something loaded, about that small exchange between them just then that Sam couldn’t quite put his finger on. 

In the end he puts it aside, focusing on being dry and warm. He’s taller and broader than Drake so the clothes aren’t perfect but Rosina’s right, at least they were dry. 

When he emerges from her bathroom she’s sitting cross-legged on the floor, back against the sofa, flipping through the channels, with two steaming mugs of tea sitting at the coffee table in front of her and Sam joins her on the rug, eager to warm up. 

He doesn’t mean to spend the rest of the evening in her flat, catching the tail end of an old supernatural show and spending a solid hour arguing about the merits and downfalls of the show’s season 4 cast change. 

They talk about stupid things that pop up on the telly, and serious things (going back to uni for her, leaving his job at Ross’s company for him). She shows him funny videos of his niece and nephew’s antics when she nannies them and it strikes him how she knows so much about his family, about his life, and the people he loves, and until very recently they were virtual strangers. She was going to _marry_ into his family and he barely knew her.

For the first time they don’t talk about Drake. They don’t talk about the engagement. They don’t talk about _how she’s doing_ because she’s doing fine. She’s happy and excited about her future and he knows this because talking about going back to uni lights up her eyes in a way that talking about marriage to his brother never did. He knows this because if her eyes had shined this bright before, he would have noticed. 

“There’s this scholarship, and if I get it I’d be able to go back next term!” She says, practically bouncing next to him. 

“Have you applied for it yet?” he asks, smiling widely at her excitement. 

“Yeah, if they decide to interview me, I’ll have to show them a few pieces I’ve created. I just finished my best one this morning.” She pauses and grins, “Would you like to see it?” She asks, smiling in that way she does where her cheeks turn pink and she casts her gaze downwards, almost shy, Sam has come to notice. 

He tilts his head down to catch her eye with an expectant smile. “Of course!”

She leaps to her feet then, running the few feet into her room and closing the door behind her. 

“It’s the first time I’ve put it on with the ties sewn in,” she calls from her room, “you may need to help me.”

Sam laughs and climbs up to sit on the sofa, “alright, come out then!”

She emerges, a long red dress draped over her body and it’s such a striking contrast from her golden hair and skin that for a moment Sam is struck speechless. Watching her float across the living room to stand directly in front of him with a radiant smile before turning around and gathering her hair over her shoulder. 

“Alright, do me up,” she says about the thin red ties that cross along her bare back, coming together at the base of her spine. 

He clears his throat slightly, rubbing his hands on his jeans before gently tugging at the ties, watching them gather the dress to wrap around her even more perfectly, and he secures it with a bow knot. She steps away from him, turning around and swinging back and forth a few times, his eyes follow the path of the light, flowy fabric like he’s hypnotized.

“What do you think?”

He stands, because he doesn’t know what else to do and he suddenly feels wholly inept, sitting on her sofa, gawking up at her as if he’s never noticed how lovely she is. Of course he has. He’s not _blind._ He noticed as early as the first time he met her but back then there was Drake and there was Emma and engagements and it was so, so different from right now. Right now where there is him and there is her and a red dress and this _something_ that they’ve formed between them. As if their heartbreaks were just a stop in the journey towards each other.

“So?” She asks again, breaking him out of his trance and he smiles at her. 

“It’s beautiful,” he manages, hoping he isn’t being one of those cliches where he says it while looking straight at her. “You’re very talented, Rosina.” 

She blushes and shrugs. “When you grow up without much money and _very_ posh school mates who make you feel like crap when you can’t afford the trendy shops, you learn to make do.” She says lightly. 

He smiles at her warmly, in awe of what she’s done in her life when she started with so little. He knows what it’s like, the son of an impoverished alcoholic, he didn’t have much growing up either. If it weren’t for Demelza’s good fortune in marrying Ross, who knows where they’d be. 

He’s still standing like a bit of an idiot in her living room when she comes back from her bedroom, this time in pajamas and he suddenly realizes how late it must be. 

“I should go,” he starts, grabbing his leather jacket off the back of a chair and throwing it on. 

“Yeah, alright,” she tucks a stray curl behind her ear and -is it his imagination or does she sound a little out of breath? 

He doesn’t allow himself to ponder on it, turning around and making a quick sprint for the door. 

“Sam?”

He’d nearly done it, hand on the door knob, when he hears her and he turns around hesitantly, aware of a shift in the air between them. 

She’s walking towards him slowly, as if he’s a scared animal that would bolt any minute and if he were being honest, he might. Something had been changing between him and Rosina the last few months and he’d tried to ignore it but tonight it was there. Making its presence known and refusing to be ignored as she twirled around in a red dress for him. 

“Don’t forget these,” she says softly, and it’s then that he notices that she’s standing so close, nearly pressed up against him, pushing the pile of his wet clothes into his hands. 

He should know better. He’s read the bible enough times to know better than to covet his brother’s wife. 

But then she isn’t his wife, is she? 

Right now she’s this brilliant girl, stronger than she looks, staring up at him with shining eyes that have come to understand him in the last few months better than so many others in his entire life. 

He’s never been one for impulsiveness. One of Emma’s many complaints about his personality. He’s always thoughtful, deliberate, acting with _sense_ to avoid regrets later.

But there, in his brother’s borrowed clothes, he doesn’t see anything but her and so he leans forward and closes the space between them; kissing her until they’re both senseless. 


End file.
